


At the Fruits of the Zee Festival

by kylee



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Feasting, Frivolity, Gen, Ritual Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:36:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylee/pseuds/kylee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They gave your friend to the wind."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Acquaintance: The Bohemian Epicene

**Lunch with a Fellow Londoner**  
You saw the Bohemian Epicene spill from the London ferry, loose hair and a white dress with a sailor's collar. Now she flits from table to table, enjoying the Fruits of the Zee.  
 _(Unlocked when Acquaintance: The Bohemian Epicene is at 0.)_

 **Fruits of the Zee**  
The Epicene's quick to include you in her feasting, and exchange introductions as you go.

Here's a plateful of shining crab meat, to be eaten before the glow's gone. Your companion's a composer, a cellist, a cardplayer. She sweeps her hands to show the conductor's wand, the musician's bow, the shuffling of cards. And oh! Here's something battered and tentacled, crunchy and juicy, piled high for the tasting.

" _Delizioso_ ," the Epicene declares. Her voice lilts and skips and sings. She insists you have one, and you have another, and you have a cider to wash it all down. So warm, so effusive is she, she fills the easy air of Mutton Island with excuses to indulge yourself.

You share slices of cave-fish seasoned with the herbs of the island, and speak of the taverns of Veilgarden, the music halls of Spite, the spires of the Bazaar. Those strange places become familiar, from across the black zee.

"You'll call on me, won't you?" After she leaves, her brass-bright laughter lingers.

_You've made a friend, or at least a contact: Aquaintance: The Bohemian Epicene._   
_Hedonist is increasing ..._   
_Unaccountably Peckish is decreasing ..._   
_Nightmares is decreasing ..._

**A Dance Around the Maypole with the Bohemian Epicene**  
"It's you! It's you, oh, come with me --" The Epicene is a whirlwind, as usual. You're seized by the hand and away.  
 _(Unlocked when Acquaintance: The Bohemian Epicene is at A Platonic Flirtation.)_

 **'Round you go**  
Ribbons twist round the maypole, and soon so do you. The Epicene twirls you in a local dance -- or she says it's local. You suspect she improvises.

Her voice rings with children's song, _a-down a-down a-North a-round_ , and she laughs and she leaps and with a press of her hand she leads you to leaping, too. When you fall back, she falls back with you, and she spurs you onward.

By the time the dancing stops, the both of you are breathless, but the Epicene is glowing. She's glad to see you. She promises drinks and conversation later, then twirls again to go.

The ribbon slips off her boater hat, carried by one of the island's odd breezes, and you catch it before it escapes. You'd offer it back, but she's lost to the festival.

Later.

_You've gained 1 x Memory of Distant Shores._   
_You've gained 1 x Lost Blue Ribbon._   
_Hedonist is increasing ..._

**A Leisurely Boat Ride with the Bohemian Epicene**  
Your lover comes close and touches your arm. "My saviour from loneliness," the Epicene calls you. Is the Epicene, of all Londoners, lonesome?  
 _(Unlocked when Acquaintance: The Bohemian Epicene is at A Free Love Affair.)_

 **Under the false-stars**  
One can be lonesome even in a crowd. You arrange for a rowboat, and the Epicene meets you at the shore in a cream-coloured boating suit -- a smart ensemble, but isn't the Epicene always smart? There's room enough in the rowboat for the two of you, and you row out, out into the dark. The dark's not entire, with the Epicene at your side. The zee shines apocyanic in the glimlight from the roof, and the cavern of the Neath seems vaster than before.

Mutton Island, it seems, makes the Epicene nostalgic. The flowers, the trees, the dancing youths. And the festival is like a festival from his home country. It isn't even far, through the Cumaean Canal, but he can never go. He once had a paramour ...

But he breaks off. He looks at you and his eyes are more than apocyanic, bluer than blue. Softly smiling, he curls himself close to you, and he takes off his hat to pillow his head upon your shoulder.

The hours pass in easy intimacy. The Epicene thanks you for the trip, and kisses your cheek, before reclaiming his hat and his enthusiasm.

You find his hat ribbon at the bottom of the boat, too late to the stop the Epicene rushing to the maypole.

_You've gained 1 x Vision of the Surface._   
_You've gained 1 x Lost Blue Ribbon._   
_Magnanimous is increasing ..._

**Where is the Epicene?**  
You've not seen him, or her, and how could you miss her, or him?  
 _(Unlocked with Acquaintance: The Bohemian Epicene and 1 x Lost Blue Ribbon)_

 **A song of a sacrifice**  
The Mutton Islanders are at their coyest. Lads you'd seen drinking with the Epicene not hours ago, now tell you they can't place the hair nor the ribbon. So many blond Bohemians come in for the festival!

Even amid the festival cheer, you sense they dislike being asked.

A drownie sits apart from her chorus, listless even for a drownie. "They gave your friend to the wind," she says. In her sunken eyes falls a shadow approaching sympathy. The Bohemian Epicene danced with the drownies, listened to their songs.

"Will you hear what the wind sings?"

_You've gained 1 x Storm-Threnody._   
_Nightmare is increasing ..._


	2. (Interlude)

Narcisa's a whirlwind, as usual. The local lads call her Fancy Narcy, but she's not too fancy to drink with the rowdiest of them, to shout and clap and sing, to pin her skirts and show her ankles as she dances a dizzy tarantella. She drags even drownies into her dances, like a drownie herself dragging zailors under dark water. Youths garland her with yellow-crowned daffodils, the Custodial Chef prepares the finest catches before her, and -- for the festival -- the islanders treat her like a Princess.

Later it's Narciso back from the rowboat, tie loose around his neck as he sits on the shore, and he hears the drownies sing of the Fathomking and his bride. He praises the aching melody -- he pleads to hear it to its end, face turned up like a yellow-crowned flower. Then someone hands him another drink, and ah, there's time for another dance! There's time to dart along the shore, evading the eager jaws of Mary Lloyd! _Up he goes! Down he goes!_

The rhymes of Mutton Island are so familiar -- so much to remember, so much to forget. Narciso's a whirlwind, wild, joyful.

_Then drifting, then dreaming._

_Narcissus doesn't need a title like the Lonely Knight. He's only a foot-soldier, a pawn to be played by Queen or King, here at the edge of the board, here at the teeth of the cliff. The Innocent Princess stands at his side, so fair, so calm, and beneath the blind she has his eyes. Garlands ring her neck like a noose._

_A piece must be pushed. That's the plain truth of it. By love or by duty, by the hand of the Queen, by the voice of the King. You must sacrifice something precious to the Thunder._

_Narcissus steps forward, leaps. The thunder speaks. "You are foolish and brave. I will take you to the North, and I will show you where the Masters play at battle. I will read to you from the Correspondence. I will save you from the sea and I will take you to the spring that the dead men long for."_

_The waves run red as blood, and grasping, spinning fingers reach out of the water. They crash the cliffs in sounds like sighs beleaguered, weary with wisdom._

_One can sacrifice or be a sacrifice._

_"And really," asks a memory, "don’t you think Abraham should have stood up for his son?"_

Blue eyes flash open, in the midst of a fall --

 


	3. 1 x Lost Blue Ribbon

****

**The Fate of the Bohemian Epicene**  
You never did find her (or him) at the festival. You might call on his (or her) London lodgings.

_(Unlocked with[1 x Lost Blue Ribbon](http://bohemianepicene.tumblr.com/post/96208418142/at-the-festival).)_

**Go to Paulsen's & Associates**  
A smog-blackened, half-timbered relic from before the fall, and a bookseller's, by all accounts. The hours are strange but cats and urchins come ago, and the Bohemian Epicene keeps a handsome set of rooms above.

 **Bedside manners**  
The rumour's that Paulsen's a pugilist, a theological historian, and a drownie. He answers the door, when you ring the bell, and looks like nothing so much as a harried nurse. He thinks (he tells you) the Bohemian Epicene will be glad of the company, and arms you with tray and hot toddy like a sword and shield.

Upstairs the Epicene huffs from his sickbed, already sweeping out a hand for the hot toddy. It's only a cold! Not even spore-fever, a foolish cold.

But he _is_ glad of the company. He thanks you, and his smile is shining, sincere, even if his voice and his sinuses are fogged. The festival? He took a tumble into the zee, it seems. A merchant ship saved him.

How? Ah. There's no accusation in the Bohemian Epicene's tone; it's as if he's describing a distant dream. "I was pushed."

The Epicene can't recall every detail. He recalls dozing under a stone wall, feeling firm hands carry him up the cliffside, hearing the sound of chanting -- he recalls dreaming of falling, and snapping awake between precipice and black water --

But it's a good thing you saved the ribbon. The hat, poor hat, was ruined.

_You've lost 1 x Lost Blue Ribbon._  
 _You've learned the fate of the Bohemian Epicene._

**A moment for reflection**  
The Bohemian Epicene was pushed during the Fruits of the Zee Festival. What do you make of the news?

 **— You're relieved**  
Your associate was saved from the wind and the zee and the life of a drownie. That's all that matters, and that there's time for recovery.

 **Heavy is the head**  
That night you dream of a battlement, of fires advancing from afar, of a Beleaguered King who tells you the war will not be won with kindness. How, then, can it be won? He's sent so many to die. How will our kingdom regain its right to live?

The King shakes his head, so slow, so sad.

"We must do what the Thunder said."

_Magnanimous is increasing ..._

**— You're regretful**  
To think a light so dazzling could come so close to being snuffed out! Whether it's for the Epicene's sake, or a reminder of your own fragility, you find yourself saddened.

 **Lullaby for a stormy night**  
That night you dream of a cliff, ragged and worn by the wind, and of the Innocent Princess, blindfolded and barefooted at the cliff's edge. Clouds crack with thunder, and the storm wails and weeps and gnashes.

Under the din, you hear the soft song of the Princess's voice, a rise and fall like the rocking of a cradle. She sings _shantih shantih shantih ..._

_Melancholy is increasing ..._

**— You're revengeful**  
Sacrifice your associate to their dread rites, will they? The islanders were behind this, and the islanders must answer. Your reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.

 **Ineffable and secret seeds**  
That night you dream of the Red-Handed Queen; Her Highness is in a merry mood. She sits at the head of a table piled with pomegranates red as original sin, clusters of currants and dark-dewed cherries, strawberries and raspberries spilling glistening from the platter. Her hands run with blood and juices and you cannot tell which is which.

"You've earned this," she tells you. "Feast," she commands you. You take handfuls, mouthfuls, of the lush, sweet fruit, but nothing fills you.

You wake with the taste of ash on your tongue.

_Unaccountably Peckish is increasing ..._

**— You couldn't say**  
Overwhelmed or indifferent, your feelings are your own to manage.

 **A game of chess**  
That night you dream of a board, pieces set, black and white as a churchman's politics. You dream of Man and Woman, Husband and Wife, King and Queen.

"There is a cost that is known --"

"And a cost that is not. Yes, yes, I've heard it said. But what was it for?"

"What was it ever?"

"Love. Love. Always look to love."

_(Subtle is increasing ...)_


End file.
